25. Ava
TWENTY-FIVE
AVA
Knox shouts my name, but he’s only a flash in my periphery as I run down the steps to the two dead bodies in the backyard, trembling as I examine their crumpled forms. Not Julio. Instead, it’s two thirty-something men. One has a gun wound in the chest, and the other, whose head is contorted, has blood staining his back. I exhale a whimpered sigh of relief.
“Ava—” Knox barrels out the back door and down the steps.
Frantically, I scan the backyard for another body. “Where’s Julio?” I only see a garden shed with the door open, potting soil upturned and spilling onto the ground. An old tractor, overgrown with weeds...
“I thought it was him,” I squeak. “But?—”
“Julio is—” Knox spins around. “He was right behind me.”
There’s a shuffle, and when Julio steps out of the house, I nearly choke with relief. “Oh, thank God.” I hurry over as he stumbles a little, gripping the porch post to steady himself.
“I thought I’d missed one.” He stares into my eyes. “When you screamed...” The look on his face is a mix of elation, confusion, and sadness. Then I realize he’s gripping his side, soaked in crimson.
“You’ve been shot?”
Julio’s legs give out, and he nearly falls down the steps. “I told them to take what they needed. I didn’t want trouble,” he sputters, grimacing in pain.
Knox is instantly at my side.
“We need to get you out of this heat,” I say. Knox and I lift Julio, bracing his weight between us as we help him up the steps and through the back door.
Suddenly, every second I’d spent looking through the small house, assessing this new life he made for himself, feels like wasted, precious time, because the manic energy coursing through me tells me we don’t have much of it left.
“Over here.” Knox leads us to the couch, and he helps me ease Julio down as gently as we can. Blood covers the side of his button-up shirt and spreads down his leg. My heart is racing so fast, I pray I don’t have a panic attack right here and now, while Julio is near death in front of me. He can’t die. The words loop through my head, but the way Julio looks at me, I think I’ve said it out loud. “We need to stop the bleed?—”
“You came,” Julio breathes. He gulps a breath. His brown eyes are unfocused and watery with pain and sadness. Tears glide down the deep lines of his face, and the gurgle of what I know are final breaths lodge in the back of his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“No—none of that,” I tell him, and Knox appears with a handful of towels. Julio cringes as I press them to his wound. “If we’d gotten here sooner,” I rasp. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s desperate and frantic and almost hysterical. I want to scream at him to stay alive because, estranged or not, I need him. We’re all we’ve got, and now he’s leaving me too.
“There are so many regrets,” he croaks. “So many things to say.”
“All that matters is I’m here now. We’ll get you fixed up. We’ll figure everything else out later.” The words pour from my lips. They are defiant and determined even if my heart is breaking on the inside.
“I—” Julio winces. “I see your mother in my dreams.” Instead of looking at me, Julio slowly turns his head to Knox.
Knox’s nostrils flare, and his eyes, already glistening with emotion, harden momentarily before they fill with tears.
“She asks me if you are okay and...I can never answer her.” He struggles to swallow. “I have only...ever been able to ask...for her forgiveness.”
Silent tears streak Knox’s cheeks, and I wipe my nose on my arm and stifle a sob.
“Now,” Julio rasps, “if I meet her again, I can give her peace.”
Knox’s chin trembles as he stares at the man who has tainted every part of his life. But he doesn’t look at him with rage or indifference. He looks at Julio with sorrow.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Julio exhales a ragged breath. He swallows convulsively, and I grip his hand tighter. “It’s as it should be now.”
“Julio. ..” His name is a plea, and when he opens his eyes, his distant gaze meeting mine, Julio lifts his trembling hand and cups my face. “You look just like Maria. She would have been forty-five this month.” His palm is rough from hard work, and the regret in his eyes cuts me to the core. I could have come sooner. I could have come months ago. I could have visited or called at least.
“Julio—”
“I’m so—sorry, mija.”
“Don’t,” I tell him, but Julio chokes on whatever he is going to say next. I grip his shoulder. “No—you can’t do this to me!”
Julio suffocates on his final words, and his eyes roll back into his head.
“Stay awake, goddammit!” I shake him vehemently. “Julio! Look at me—” I don’t know how many times I say his name or for how long I shake him. And I don’t know if my cries are borne of anger or sadness, but he is gone and death has claimed the last of my family. More than that, I never gave Julio a proper second chance.
“Ava.” Knox’s voice is faint, and my hands fall into my lap. I stare at the blood staining my nail beds and fingers. I have been angry and filled with grief more times than I can count, but the regret I feel is toxic, corrosive, and all-consuming.
Knox lifts me to my feet. “Did you hear me?” He squeezes my shoulders and I blink at him. “Ava? Please say something.”
“I’m—” I clear my throat, forcing my tongue to work. “I’m fine.”
Knox shakes his head. “No, you’re not. And you don’t have to be, but you were muttering to yourself.”
I stare at the blood staining Knox’s shirt and hands.
“Ava?” When he whispers my name, I force myself to meet his gaze. Looking into Knox’s eyes is almost worse than numbness because I see his fear. It’s wild and alive like my own, and the fissures riddling their way through me deepen.
“Ava,” he says, more firmly this time. His thumbs rub my shoulders as he grips me harder, willing me to say something. To be strong. “Ava, I’m here.” Knox says it like he’s answering a question I don’t remember asking, and I feel the warm press of his clammy hand against my face. “Julio’s not all you have left.” His words stir something inside me. A shred of hope? A modicum of relief? I stare at Knox , really look into his hazel eyes, and I believe him. I have Knox and Knox has me.
I nod, and somewhere deep down, I find a fraying thread of resolve and grab hold of it. “Okay,” I whisper. I try and fail to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m okay.” I say it for myself more than for Knox and repeat the words over and over until I start to believe them.
As my focus shifts, I glance around the house—everywhere but where Julio lies on the couch. “We should stay here tonight.” Resolve anchors deeper with every word. Rooster’s sorrel tail flicks outside the window, and Lucy sits on the porch, panting as she watches us. “You should tie the horses up—get them something to eat.”
“Ava.” Knox strokes my shoulders. “You should take a minute?—”
“I don’t want a minute,” I bite out. “Sorry, I just—” I rub my forehead, willing the thickness in my brain to go away. “I need to be alone.”
Knox straightens, and I realize he is only inches from me. Taking a step back, he pulls his ball cap off his head. “I’ll take care of the horses,” he says, running his hand through his sweaty hair. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I nod, but I don’t trust myself to meet Knox’s gaze again as he reluctantly turns for the door. He is all I have left, and it’s only a matter of time before something happens to him too.